


How's It Go, Again?

by ARollingStone, HarveyDangerfield



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Amnesia, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Manipulation, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Sibling Incest, Will Add Tags As They Become Relevant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-17 11:51:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16974087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ARollingStone/pseuds/ARollingStone, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyDangerfield/pseuds/HarveyDangerfield
Summary: Unfortunately, Stan's memories don't come back as fast as anyone would like. Grunkle Stan sees off two kids at the bus stop with names he can't quite remember, and Ford spends the next year trying to bring his brother back.If you ask Ford, the ends justify any means.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from the song sober up by AJR
> 
> written with my spoose, residing over at jjstone on tumblr
> 
> this is going to be an explicit stancest fic eventually so I've decided to tag it explicit now before it gets to anything actually explicit just so it doesn't blindside anybody later who might not be about that life.

When it comes to Ford, there aren't a lot of candidates for what he could consider the "best day of his life." The day he found out he was a shoe-in for West Coast Tech might have qualified, if not for the events that happened following that soured even the pure excitement and pride he'd felt before it all came crashing down. Truthfully, the best day of his life was the day he found out he had a niece and nephew. After Sherman had moved out of the house when he and Stan were only 12, they pretty much lost all contact with him. He'd only ever been their half brother, brought into the family by their father from his previous marriage when he married their mother, and he'd already been so much older than them when they were born that there was a disconnect between them that never really let them grow close. He'd never even known Sherman had kids, let alone grandkids.

 

But just like how the shine came off of the day he found out about WCT, so too has the day he first met Dipper and Mabel lost its gleam. It isn't that he loves either of them any less, or that he's any less proud to be their "grunkle" (a term he regards with deep, abiding fondness) Rather he feels like an impostor, a cheap facsimile of the grunkle they really want, the one they deserve. The one they knew and loved all summer. The one they lost.

 

Physically, Stan wasn't gone. He was still around, he still inhabited his body and breathed air and ate dinner, and even laughed at jokes and snored while he slept. Physically, he's every bit Stan as he always was. But mentally, emotionally, where it really counts, Stan has been gone for days. The twins' birthday party came and went, the whole town came out to wish them off with promises to see them next summer, and the kids were as brave as they always have been as they faced everyone with a stiff upper lip, until the tearful, anguished goodbyes they shared at the bus stop with the man who only smiled at them out of politeness.

 

Ford promised the kids that he would make it his personal mission to try and bring _some_ semblance of the grunkle they knew and loved back to the surface. It might have been an empty promise, impossible to fulfill, but he wasn't going to rest until he'd exhausted every resource and made every attempt to bring Stanley back. He'd told them that by the time they came back to visit next summer, their grunkle would be there with a smile on his face, ready to welcome the kids he loves home.

 

He wasn't prepared, however, for how overwhelming it would be, being alone with Stan for the first time after the kids left. By now Stan knows objectively the rough timeline of the summer, and even though he'd seen pictures of himself with Ford and the kids, and even though he'd been told in detail multiple accounts of weirdmageddon that all line up from multiple sources, it still seems to all be registering to him as just a story he's being told. Nothing really seems to sink into his brain and take root.

 

It doesn't help that the Mystery Shack is absolutely torn to pieces around them. He wants to keep Stan around this area in the hopes that familiar sights would jog his memory, but the place is falling apart, chunks of wood keep breaking off from the ceilings and walls, and it's cold as anything at night without any solid walls to keep out the night air. Ford has been doing his best to keep Stan busy, recruiting him along with Soos and Wendy to rebuild the shack little by little, entrusting Stanley primarily to simple tasks like holding supplies for them and carting away garbage. He seems to thrive under simple instruction, but anything more than a couple steps seems to be too complicated for him to remember in his current state.

 

The hit to his memory has taken more than just all his long-term thoughts and feelings-- even simple directions are sometimes hard for him. Ford's found him in the kitchen in the morning, trying to make breakfast, cracking eggs into the frying pan when he'd forgotten to turn the burner on, or pouring milk over his cereal when there are already three full bowls of cereal forgotten on the counter, growing soggy. It's odd what's been taken from him, little things and big things, stolen in the blink of an eye.

 

Often, he forgets where he is-- wakes up in the middle of the night yelling, unsure of his surroundings, waking the whole house. But it's always Ford who's there to pick up the pieces after his brother's shot out of bed. There was one event when he'd run out of the house, and made it a good distance down the dirt path, screaming about something which he'd entirely forgotten by the time Ford had found him. Worse still, he seems anxious sometimes for no discernible reason. He can't recall why he's scared when Ford asks. His brother, who Ford remembers as an imposing figure, brash and calculating, is reduced to a sniveling mess, clinging to the threads of his shirt and asking Ford if he's _real_.

 

At least things settle into a regular pattern, after a while. Ford finds that Stan operates much better once they put together a schedule for him to follow, with a watch clipped to his wrist set with key alarms to remind him to eat breakfast, take a walk around the property, take a shower, eat dinner, and tend to other important tasks. Honestly, the only silver lining from this entire mess is that Ford has been able to strong arm his brother into taking better care of himself, in a sense. In the weeks after coming out of the portal before weirdmageddon, Ford had expressed his concern about Stan's physical habits as best he could. Though he knew it came off more patronizing than genuinely concerned for his health, he never really could figure out how to express to Stan that his habits of drinking 12 cans of soda a day and never exercising brought Ford distress. There's a bitter-sweetness that comes with seeing Stan take daily walks and eat better; even if it is better for his health overall, Ford wishes it could come naturally, and not like this. He never would have wanted it to come like this.

 

He tries to stick to Stan as closely as possible when he's home, and if he ever has to leave, he entrusts his safety to Soos, who lovingly makes sure that Stan is always safe and comfortable. Ford has to leave more often than he would like, but he's found that the town sorely needs him, now more than ever. With Stan incapacitated and the twins out of town, Soos crippled by social anxiety, and Wendy, Candy, Grenda, Robbie, Pacifica and Gideon occupied with being _children_ , Ford is the only hero left from that day with any amount of authority. The townsfolk always seem to need him, whether it's to identify and rescue them from a leftover monster tucked away in some uncovered corner, or to contain a breach in the thin veil between their world and what's left of Bill's, or even just to express to a panicked citizen that they really are safe and only experiencing a PTSD panic attack, he finds himself torn away from the Mystery Shack nearly daily, including the one person he truly wants to be near.

 

Little bit by little bit, Stan seems to recover. The victories they achieve are small, but Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is Stan Pines. Ford's influence can be seen in how his brother seems to get physically stronger--eating better and exercising sees a marked increase in his energy. He's capable of doing so much more by the end of a month, which urges Ford to continue to rally behind such behavior, even if sometimes he wonders how Stan-- the Stan he knew before --would really feel about all of that. At times, Ford finds himself wondering that all too often, occasionally swearing to himself that he can hear the old codger's voice in his ears, complaining about all the vegetables and good deeds. "What am I, a rabbit?" but for the most part, he knows he's doing the right thing, even if he does feel a little guilty on occasion.

 

Eventually, Stan is remembering where he put his house keys and wallet, and by the end of the first month, he's even made the odd joke or two, and while they weren't the knee slappers that Ford would have associated his brother with, it does show that his personality is returning bit by bit. But even so, jokes and found keys don't really make up for the vacant stares that Stan gives him occasionally when he's forgotten Ford's name or even lost the thread of a conversation he'd just been having.

 

Sitting across from Stan at the kitchen table while they eat dinner after a long evening of finally repairing the last of the holes in the roof (Ford had finally, finally gotten the S to stay put on the sign) Ford opens his notebook that he's been using to record Stan's progress, and clicks his pen. He has a very long line of graphs with check marks in various boxes for the days of the week, recording which of the names from the list on the left he can recall.

 

"Alright, time to start with the basics. What's your name, and my name?" he says, pen poised and ready to make marks on his graph. The checks were pretty sparse early on at the beginning, and as the weeks have passed he's taped more graph paper on to be folded up accordion-style between the covers of the notebook, but these days the checks have been more frequent, and there have even been days where he almost filled out the entire row, top to bottom.

 

Stan looks up from his dinner, leaning a heavy forearm on the table and chews thoughtfully a moment before replying, "You're Ford, I'm Stan short for Stanford and Stanley." Reaching over, he takes a drink of water from his glass, sets it back down with the clink of ice cubes and sits there, looking across at Ford, waiting for the next question. By now, he's gotten used to this little test. He's even gotten annoyed with it a few times, which had delighted Ford to no end, because it meant his personality was coming back. Today, he seems fairly patient with it, looking down as Ford places a neatly-scrawled checkmark in the first boxes, a soft smirk tugging at Stan's lips.

 

"Good, very good," Ford skips down the list a bit, taking it out of order as he usually does, so Stan can't just try to memorize the order of the names and recite them that way. "What are the names of our niece and nephew?" 

 

Stan tries, very hard, to look certain of himself, but a deep frown creases his brow and he glances away, gritting his teeth. Blue eyes close and he tries to remember the faces of the children he'd seen at summer's end, brown hair and cheery smiles cross his thoughts, memories of stickers, well wishes, the bus driving away through a forest of redwoods, and for a moment he could swear he can feel the brush of the wind on his face, but despite all those details, the names come up unclear to him.

 

"Uuhhh," he stalls, glancing around, toward the refrigerator, where he knows some of their art is hanging, but there's no clues, just drawings of all of them, Ford looking tall and statuesque as ever, Stan grumpier, standing off the side of the crude crayon drawing; and there they are, the kids as he remembers them vaguely, but the drawing doesn't help as much as he'd hoped. "Mandy and Doppler? Issat right?" Stan frowns, waiting for a response from his brother. "C'man, that's close, isn't it?"

 

"It is close," Ford says as he scratches X's into their boxes for the day. "Closer than you've been in the past. You usually get the first letter right, even when you're way off base you almost always call them by an M and D name respectively..." he taps the end of his pen to his lips in thought, frowning at the graph with furrowed brows. When he looks up he sees Stan looking off to the side with an embarrassed grimace, and Ford's expression softens. "Don't lose hope-- that means something is sticking. Their names are Mabel and Dipper."

 

"Right! Mabel and Dipper-- see I was going to _say_ Mabel, but then I second guessed myself!" Stan says, his bravado apparent, at least that part of him hasn't changed. He shovels more food into his mouth and tries his hardest not to look uncertain, but there's a bead of sweat on his forehead as he watches Ford's hands nervously, unable to guess the next question due to his brother's cleverness with the chart.

 

Ford gives him a kind smile but decides not to say anything on the matter, instead moving on to the next questions. He asks about the names of the mayor, and the woman who runs the diner, about Stan's ex-wife, Mabel's best friends and the employees of the Mystery Shack, which Stan gives a pretty good mix of getting correct and forgetting. He even manages to nail both of their brother's names today, which has been his worst track record to date, and Ford puts checks in both Sherman and Stewart's boxes.

 

"You're doing well today Stanley," Ford praises as he comes to the last couple of names on his chart. "Alright, last ones. What are our parents names?"

 

Stan, who had been preening a bit about doing well, lets out a huff of air, his chest practically deflating--their parents? Sitting there, he can't honestly recall if this is a new question, or an old one that he just doesn't remember. The names Ford is asking for certainly aren't clear to him, unlike Mabel and Dipper, he can't even begin to guess what letters go where, and the memories from back then seem lost in the ether, beyond his reach in a haze of headachey thought.

 

Licking the inside of his cheek, Stan frowns and just takes a stab in the dark, "Frank and . . . uh, Sally?"

 

Ford clicks his tongue softly and writes X's in the boxes. "Our mother was Caryn, our father was Filbrick," he corrects gently. "But hey-- you managed to get twelve out of twenty today, that's over half. You're doing well, Stanley."

 

Stan sits back like he's been punched in the face as Ford goes on, and shakes his head a little as a ringing fills his ears. Something catches in the back of his throat and forces him to cough, a fluttering at the base of his throat, near his collarbone that grows into a chest pain that causes him to clutch his chest with one hand while he steadies himself on the table; then a buzzing starts in his head, and his eyes dart around the room, looking for an exit, a way out, something to defend himself with and the twin stands bolt upright on shaky legs, sweating now as terror grips his stomach and he tries to walk toward the door, his feet feeling as thought they're stuck in quick sand.

 

"I gotta get outta here." He grunts, bracing himself on the door frame as he takes a few more steps across the room. "Gotta get some fresh air."

 

Ford looks up when he hears his brother's voice go tight and his eyes widen. He's on his feet in a second following after Stan, his graph left behind on the table. "Whoa-- Stanley, hey, hey! Slow down, hey, look at me," he circles in front of him, taking his chin in one hand to direct Stan's eyes up at his. "Look at me, deep breaths, look at me. Where are you?"

 

"Geddaway from me!" Stan yells, trying to push his brother off, but anxiety is making his hands feeble and weak, as is the pain in his chest. It's so tight, feels like it's squeezing out more breath than it's letting in. "I gotta get outta here!" Eyes blown wide, he stumbles, and regains his composure by grabbing Ford so hard by the shoulders that he's probably going to leave bruises, and looking up into his brother's eyes, he tries to make heads or tails of what he's feeling. "We gotta get outta here before he comes back, Ford!"

 

"Stanley, look into my eyes," Ford grabs Stan by the shoulders, gripping him in return, trying to return him back to reality. His voice is raised, firm, but not unkind. Hard like a knife, to cut through the fog of anxiety. "Look at me, look at the lines on my face, look at the grey in my hair. I'm old, Stanley, we're both old. We're fifty-seven years old, we aren't in New Jersey-- _look_ at me, Stanley. We're safe."

 

Stan stammers, trying to find words, but he can't--instead, he listens to Ford's voice, and his face slowly comes into focus, a face he knows so well because in a sense it's his own face too. Heavy breath falls from his lips, he grips Ford harder, frowning so hard he's getting a headache. "Ford?" His voice cracks, and a hand clamps down on the back of his brother's neck, his chest is still tight and achey, like he'd just run miles and can't catch his breath. "We're-- where are we?"

 

"We're in the Mystery Shack," Ford says, catching Stan around the shoulders and helping him wobble around the corner into the living room, gently depositing him in that tacky yellow chair he loves so much. He kneels down in front of Stan and grips both of his hands, his heart breaking as he looks up at the face of his brother, so lost and scared and worse, _embarrassed_ for being lost and scared. He rubs his thumbs over Stan's knuckles, hoping to bring him properly back to the surface with tactile information pinging through his skin and into the hazy panic in his brain. "Our parents are dead, Stanley. They died a long time ago. Our father can't hurt us, he isn't part of the world anymore. He can't hurt you."

 

Stan looks around the living room, trying to make sense of everything. There's evidence of Ford and the kids everywhere, and slowly he starts to realize that he's not there anymore. Though wherever _there_ is, it's hard to say because almost as soon as he'd remembered, he'd forgotten and it'd just left him sad and scared and embarrassed; but looking back down, he sees Ford kneeling in front of him and his mouth drops open, "I . . . I dunno what happened, Ford it all came and went so fast. Our dad, I think he-somethin' happened, you were in trouble. You were gonna get it, and then I just remember . . . I remember--I can't remember, Ford. I can't remember anymore."

 

"It's okay," Ford squeezes Stan's hands again, taking a shaky inhale and trying very hard not to look too happy or excited about this, lest it give Stan the wrong idea. "We're safe. _I'm_ safe. But don't you realize what this means, Stanley? You remembered enough to feel scared when I said our father's name-- that's never happened before. I know it doesn't feel like a good thing right now... but this is a step in the right direction."

 

Realising he can move at last, Stan turns his hands over in Ford's and takes them both, squeezing roughly, but as his brother continues to talk, his lip curls and he pulls his hands away. "Whaddya mean it's good? This ain't good!" Almost as soon as he starts yelling again, the pain in his chest comes back and he gives a gruff noise of pain, clutching his chest. "There's nothin' good about any of this, I dunno why you're so excited."

 

"I know-- I know it doesn't feel good. I know it's scary, but it means you're remembering things, Stanley, it means your memories are coming back. It means you're making progress, in areas we haven't even gone over before. I haven't even told you the full story of... well, of everything that happened when we were kids, because I didn't want to overload you. Our father's name inciting fear in you-- it's a good sign. It means your brain is making connections on its own, without my help."

 

"Listen Ford, if you could stop bein' so gleeful about this, I think it'd help a ton." Stan shoves him back on his haunches, but the motion is weak at best, his arms feeling like wet noodles, chest still achey and tight. "I'll celebrate with ya when I can get the kids' names right, but right now just back off a little, alright? You're makin' me feel claustrophobic."

 

Ford sits back on the balls of his feet and rubs his hands over his face. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to. I'm not happy that you had a panic attack Stanley, I'm not glad you were scared. I just..." he sighs, and shakes his head. "Nevermind," he stands and takes a seat on the couch instead, running a hand through his hair. "Do you need anything? Water? Some space?"

 

"I dunno what I need." He says gruffly, slouching in the chair, reaching down on muscle memory to pop the button on his suit. But he isn't wearing one, he  just pinches the front of his tank top, leaving him with a queasy feeling of confusion. "Never uh, had one'a these before . . . far as I can remember, but I guess that's not worth much these days, huh?"

 

Ford elects not to tell Stanley that he's been having a lot of panic attacks lately. He doubts it would help. Stan gives a hopeless chuckle and mirrors his brother, running fingers through his hair then glances sidelong at Ford where he's sitting with his face in his hands, brows knitting together. For some reason, he wants to ask if he's okay, but something prevents him, so he just stifles the urge and shakes his head with a tight frown. "How much am I missin'? Look at us, we're old men." He rubs the center of his chest, trying to diffuse some of the tension in his muscles, still trying to catch his breath a bit too. "I can't even remember my name sometimes."

 

"You're missing so much," Ford sniffs, raising his face out of his hands. It looks like he might be close to tears, but he steels his expression. "So much of it I can't even tell you. I know the broad strokes of your life, Stanley, but... we spent forty years apart." Ford wrings his hands together, his elbows propped on his knees. This is the first time he's spoken to Stan about any of this since he lost his memories, and fear makes his chest tight. "I was... lost. When I came back, we only had a short few weeks before Bill came to our world and tore it apart, and I didn't learn everything there was about you to know. I heard scattered anecdotes, but. I'm just not equipped with the information to fill in all the gaps from all fifty-seven years of your life, Stanley. I wish I was, more than anything I wish I... I'm so, so sorry."

 

Stan rubs his knees awkwardly, listening to his brother's genuine remorse tears at his heartstrings-- even if he can't understand the scope of it, he knows how deeply this must hurt him, because even now that his memories are gone, Stan knows how profound their bond must be. It's clear as day, not just in the way Ford's voice shakes, but the attention to detail, every day. His graphs, charting their progress, his devotion to Stan's needs. He can see how deeply Ford loves him.

 

"Well, guess we got a lotta work to do, huh Ford?" Stan pauses and looks at his brother, head tilted and he gives a chuckle. "But you seem prepared for that, with all your graphs and pie charts." Again he laughs, clearly making fun of him in some not-so-subtle way. "You're such a nerd."

 

Ford lifts his head again with a soft, sad smile. "You'll thank me for my graphs and pie charts later, when you've recovered all of your memory and you'll have something to look back on to track your progress. You big meat head."

 

 Stan gives a deep belly laugh, "I dunno about that, might just shoot myself in the face with that gun again if ya bore me too much, Ford." His brother looks him over before winking.

 

Ford's easy smile immediately softens and then droops, a guilty pang clenching behind his heart that stings all the way up to his eyes. He knows it's just a joke, and he knows he should just take it in stride and laugh along with his brother as they banter easily for the first time in weeks, but he can't work down the sickly burn climbing up the back of his throat. He knows he shouldn't take it so seriously. He knows Stanley doesn't _know_. And he knows that's his fault for not telling him, yet. 

 

He stands abruptly, feeling a queasy tremble in his stomach. "I should do the dishes," he says, sounding almost mechanical as he walks past Stan, back towards the kitchen.

 

Stan watches him go with a pit growing in his stomach, but he's quick to follow, wanting to smooth things over if he can, "Hey c'man, it was just a dumb joke, I'm not gonna shoot myself again, just relax Ford you're wound up tighter than an eight day clock!" Entering the kitchen, he finds his brother going through the motions, cleaning up the kitchen, so he comes right up behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder. "C'man, whaddid I say?"

 

Ford sets the dishes in the sink, his body language tight and tense. "You didn't do anything wrong," he says, and though his words are stiff, his tone is sincere as he pulls on his custom dish gloves, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows and turning on the water.

 

"I didn't do anything wrong?" Stan says in a flat voice. "Then why ya actin' like I did?" His grip on Ford's shoulder tightens. "Wouldja just turn around and _lookit_ me for cripes sake? You're makin' my teeth itch."

 

"I'm not acting like-- I'm--" Ford sighs, and grips the edge of the sink, leaning over it. His shoulders raise slightly like he's trying to box himself in, away from Stan's touch on his shoulder, which feels like a burning brand even through his turtleneck. Guilt burns in his stomach like a hot poker, twisting up in his guts. "Please, Stanley, I just need you to-- I can't. Too much too soon could hurt you, please don't push this. Things are already fragile enough." he turns his head, ducking it away in the opposite direction, tucking his chin against the other shoulder like he's trying to escape.

 

For the first time in a long while, Stan feels genuine anger bubble up inside of him. He's not even sure _why_ , but he knows it feels big, and it feels real. "Fine. You don't wanna talk to me, I get it. If ya need me, I'll be in the livin' room."

 

Stomping over to the fridge, he grabs a can of Pitt Cola and slams the door before stalking toward the den, and in a few moments the television is on full blast, but even over the noisy commercials, Ford can hear his brother cursing over their exchange.

 

Ford's knees give out and he droops to the kitchen floor, gripping the side of the sink over his head with the water still running, every staccato curse he hears from the living room hitting him like a knife in the back until he feels more like a pincushion than a man. Tears roll hot and thick down his cheeks and his shoulders shake, but just like he learned how to do when he was just a boy, Ford cries without making a sound.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> semi-graphic depictions of child abuse at the start of this chapter, so be wary!

Ford has been here before. He knows the inside of this closet. He knows this space, he knows how his body folds up into it. He's hidden here before.

 

Stan put him here. His cheek throbs, the bruise broken in a semi-circle under his eye aching into his brain. Stan hid him here when he heard their father coming down the hall.

 

"This is YOUR fault!"

 

"Ow-- dad! I'm sorry!"

 

"What in God's name makes you think just because I let you take boxing lessons it meant you're allowed to teach your brother to get into fights!"

 

"I'm sorry, dad!"

 

The crumpled test papers sit in a ball at Ford's feet, the C circled meanly with red and staring up at him like a familiar squinting eye.

 

"His education actually _matters_ Stanley! _Look_ at me when I'm talking to you!"

 

"I'm sorry! I didn't know he'd punch Crampelter, I just-- you shoulda heard what he said to him dad, everyone knows Ford's the smartest in class, just cause he got one C--"

 

"Don't talk back to me, boy! You can say good bye to your baseball cards, this is your fault, _you're_ paying for his new glasses!"

 

"But dad!"

 

"No backtalk!"

 

Ford flinches and shrinks down farther when he hears Stanley squeal, following a sharp slap. He feels so small, so useless, so _powerless_. Tears drip off his nose, silent as always, so his father can't find him. If his father found him, he'd get a thrashing for hitting another boy in the first place. It wasn't a big deal when Stan did it, but if _he_ fought someone, then he was putting his education and the future of the entire family in jeopardy. If only his father could see what he's capable of now, he'd never touch Stanley again.

 

That thought strikes out somewhere from the ether, and Ford's consciousness snaps up through the layers. It isn't the first time he's lucid dreamed, and he doubts it'll be the last. He stands up, pushing the closet open, tall and strong and pushing up his sleeves as he crosses the room to where his father is holding Stanley up on his tiptoes by his forearm.

 

"Ford?" he hears Stanley gasp, his voice tiny and afraid.

 

He rears his fist back and shatters their father into a million tiny shards that shoot out in every direction, piercing the scenery of the room and their mother standing unhelpfully in the doorway, and as a thousand sharp pieces jab into him, he shoots upright in his bed in a cold sweat, shivering violently with leftover adrenaline.

 

There's no hope of sleep for the rest of the night, so after a scalding shower that reminds him when and where he is, he finds himself in the kitchen hunched over a cup of room-temperature black coffee at five in the morning, staring into his reflection in the dark surface and wondering when he started to look so much like their father.

 

Across the house, Stan sits up with a start. A dream had left him rattled and hot to the touch, as if he'd had a fever burning him alive from the inside out, but sitting up, the details of the dream are already fading. He can remember a man whose face, now that he's awake, is shrouded in shadow, but what he does remember is being so small and helpless in the hands of that man that he couldn't have hoped to defend himself from.

 

And then, someone had stepped out of the shadows and kept him safe. Vaguely, he's aware that person may have been Ford, but the details of that dream are slipping away as fast as they'd come, so feeling uncertain and a bit strange, Stanley rolls over and goes back to sleep.

 

By the time he shuffles into the kitchen in the morning, he's forgotten the details of the dream he'd had the night before, almost entirely. Squinting against the sunlight, he puts on some coffee and sits down at the kitchen table, trying to get his bearings--waking up is always hard. For some reason he can't quite describe, waking from a deep sleep always makes him feel out of body for awhile. Ford had reassured him that it was just a side effect from the memory wipe, but it's a hard feeling to shake.

 

When the coffee's done, he pours himself a mug and stirs in a little sugar and cream just as he hears the soft sounds of movements elsewhere in the house-- it must be Ford, he thinks and pays little mind to it while he sets about making himself breakfast.

 

Ford enters the kitchen a moment later, holding an empty plate and fork, and he pauses at the door when he sees Stan, his heart slamming up into his throat for a moment. They make silent eye contact for just a second before Ford regains his composure and walks across the room to set his dishes in the sink, running water over the plate so the syrup won't stick to the surface.

 

Awkward silence hangs over the kitchen for a few moments as Ford wipes off his hands on a dish towel, and he turns around to lean back against the sink, folding his arms. "There's leftover pancakes," he says, indicating a covered plate with a jerk of his head. "If you want some."

 

"Yeah, thanks." Stan replies, uncovering the plate and plopping several on another before taking them to the microwave for reheating. There's no awkwardness with him, no vitriol. Before the incident, Stan might have still been prickly the day after an argument, but he seems cool as a cucumber as he pours another cup of coffee.

 

Offering the pot out, he tilts his head, "Want some?"

 

Ford glances down at the pot and then up at Stan's face, his brows pinching slightly. Stan hasn't always been the type to necessarily hold onto grudges for days and days, but he was usually at least in a bad mood the next day until a real apology was given-- and sometimes even after that, just for the principle of the thing. But this? This is just... eerie.

 

"No, thank you. I probably shouldn't have any more," he says, averting his eyes, his chest clenching queasily. He feels, whether fair or not, that he doesn't deserve Stan's kindness again yet, not so soon after he upset him so badly.

 

The energy in the room goes fixed then. Stan's picked up on his brother's weird mood, so he sets the coffee pot down, perhaps a little harder than intended, and leans a hip against the counter, taking a drink from his own mug while his flapjacks warm in the microwave.

 

"Whassamatter with you, Ford? You got a bug up your butt?" It's clearly teasing, but he's concerned too, heavy brows pinching together over the thick dark rim of his glasses. He pulls his robe closed and gives Ford a hard look, waiting for his reply.

 

Ford can't help but flinch very slightly, just a twitch of his face really, when Stan sets down the coffee pot too hard, and he finally tears his eyes out of the sink to look up at his brother. He searches his face, darting over blue eyes and the line creased between them, following down to his frown, and then flicking back up to his eyes.

 

"You don't remember, do you?" he asks softly. "You were angry with me last night."

 

"Angry at ya? Angry about what?" Stan asks gruffly, scratching his head. His brows knit together, and an incredulous look crosses his face. "Ah c'mon, Ford. If it was really important, I'd remember, right? Besides, we don't wanna rehash it, get me mad all over again. Let's just let bygones be bygones and call it settled, alright? Just relax."

 

Ford looks uncertainly into Stan's eyes, and he finds himself consumed with the desire to reach out and cup his brother's face, but he stops short of following through. Stan doesn't remember that part of their relationship, and he's honestly not sure if he's ever going to be able to remind him about it. From an unwitting perspective, the relationship they used to have is deviant, wrong, even disgusting. They always knew that, ever since they started, they always knew it was something they'd have to keep hidden, but it had always been worth it. Now, he's not so sure. Trying to convince a brand new version of Stan, clean of any of that old baggage, any of the old guilt that came when they would sacrifice anything to justify being together, clean of the pain of being in love with someone the world can never know your feelings for... he's not sure if he'd ever have the heart to try it again. If Stan doesn't remember on his own then it may be the end of it, and that alone feels like mourning a dead love.

 

He shakes his head and tears his eyes away from Stan's face, unable to look at him anymore. "You were angry with me because I didn't want to rush your... your healing," he says, looking down at his hands and wringing them together. "You wanted to know something I didn't know if you were ready to hear about again, but... I don't know," he sighs, raking a hand over his hair. "Sometimes it feels wrong, making the calls for you on what you can and can't remember, and when you can and can't remember it. Trying to reorganize your life for you, sometimes I feel like a puppeteer. Sometimes I feel like you _should_ be angry with me. I think I would be angry with me."

 

Looking back up at Stan, his shoulders sag. "You know everything I do, every decision I make-- it's to take care of you. You know that, don't you?"

 

 

Stan watches him, his heart aching as he listens. He may not remember all the minute details of their life together, but he knows Ford cares about him, that much is obvious; and in whatever way he's capable of, with what remains of his mind and what he's getting back with each passing day, he knows he cares for Ford as well.

 

He licks the inside of his cheek and shakes his head, giving a soft tut under his breath, "I know that." Looking away, he glances over at the table where Ford's book is still sitting, waiting to be filled out at the end of the day, just like always. "You wouldn't be doing all of this if ya didn't wanna take care of me." Sucking in a breath, Stan sets his coffee mug down and closes the bath robe more tightly around his frame, which in the past month has gotten more trim thanks to Ford's direction. He ties a knot in the belt and looks back up. "Sorry I was mad . . ." why was that so hard to say?

 

"It's okay, Stanley, you don't have to apologize," Ford says, shaking his head.

 

Ford looks up at Stan again, his jaw working as he chews his teeth in thought. It's strange, being able to have such a clean make-up with him, even when they were kids Stan had a habit of holding onto his grouchiness for a few hours after they would make up from an argument. It's something he knows well was a holdover from growing up the way they did, a survival tactic to keep himself safe from their father, who had a habit of rearing back a few hours later after a confrontation with the two of them. Ford had always been prone to shrinking down and just waiting for it to be over, but not Stan. Stan sometimes drew it out longer than it had to go just in order to clap back or protect Ford, or sometimes he would outright provoke it so it would start faster and be over sooner.

 

It feels foreign, being able to have such an easy, painless exchange of apologies. He knows logically it's more healthy communication, and better for the both of them, but it feels almost _wrong_ for it to be this easy. It doesn't feel like he's talking to Stan, even though he's looking him right in the eyes. And yet, at the same time, it feels so much lighter, so much freer-- and he gets the feeling Stan feels that way, too.

 

He crosses the room to sit at the kitchen table and closes his notebook before steepling his hands in front of him and gesturing with his head for Stan to sit across from him. "Maybe it is time to tell you. At least broadly, to see if it jogs any specific memories."

 

The microwave beeps, but Stan almost forgets to get his pancakes out. Setting his mug down, he slathers on some butter and syrup, then crosses over to the table, sitting down with a grunt of pain as his old, worn knees creak. Some things haven't changed.

 

Cutting into the stack of pancakes, he takes a bite and looks across at Ford, wondering what he means by that. Is he going to tell him his life story? That's been a long time in coming, but there's a flutter of anxiety in the back of Stan's chest, but he can't quite place why. There must be a reason, but trying to recall why just makes his head hurt, and gives him the strange feeling of being outside of his own body.

 

"Well, no time like the present, right Ford?" He growls, almost cranky about it as he takes another bite.

 

Ford wrings his hands together on the table, staring down at them rather than looking up at Stan. "We grew up in New Jersey," he says, keeping his voice as neutral as he can. "In a place called Glass Shard Beach. We grew up pretty poor, we had to share a room our entire childhoods. We grew up Jewish because of ma, but we didn't really celebrate many of the holidays. Well... many holidays, period. Ma was a phone psychic and a fraud, and dad owned a pawn shop under the apartment."

 

He glances up briefly, waiting to see if any of this is sinking in or making a mark on Stan, but he just seems to be listening to it like a story while he eats. Taking a deep breath, he continues. "Dad was mean. Real mean. He didn't hit us for fun, or anything, but if we ever did something wrong, there would always be hell to pay. There was this tiny closet in our room, a crawl space built right into the wall, and you'd hide me in there a lot. You said I was smaller than you, so I couldn't take the hits as easy. I always felt guilty letting you take double blows for me, but you'd always be smiling at me after when you helped me back out of the closet, even if your nose was bleeding or your eyes were watering. And I was scared, so I let you do it every time."

 

As Ford continues, Stan frowns setting his fork down. Something jogs in his mind, but it's fleeting, and it hurts. It hurt so much it feels like a hot poker being jammed behind his eye and up into his temple. Reaching up, Stan holds his head and fleeting memories become images, but he doesn't know if it's just his imagination as thought is put to Ford's words, and somehow he remembers his brother's face, small and terrified, looking up at him with wide blue eyes.

 

And then he touches his nose as an acrid taste fills his mouth, a smell accompanying the flood of it on his tongue. It's instantly recognizeable as blood, but when he pulls his hand away from his nose, it's clean, devoid of the red he'd thought for certain would be there.

 

" I remember . . . something." Stan grunts, sniffling hard, trying to clear his nose of the taste. There's an ache now, between his eyes and spreading down the bridge of his nose, touching it there he can feel a bump that he'd never noticed before, a place where his nose had been broken, likely more than once. "The details are fuzzy, I dunno but I remember you comin' outta that hole and me . . . busted up."

 

He looks up, trying to decipher the meaning, but there's just panic in his chest and pain in his face, but even as he looks at Ford now, so much older than the image of that boy burned into his mind, he can't seem to remember the details.

 

"That happened a few times," Ford nods, reaching across the table to take Stan's hand and pull it down away from his face. "I'd crawl out of my hiding place and you'd have a black eye or blood in your teeth because dad was so big... we were never sure if he actually meant to hit you hard enough to make you bleed or if he was just such a big man that he didn't realize how hard he hit, but he never apologized for it, either."

 

"I wish I could remember." Stan growls, his hand falling heavy on the table, hard enough to make the silverware bounce. "But it's givin' me a headache just hearin' this stuff--every time ya talk about Dad it's like I hit a roadblock--I get so close to rememberin' somethin' but then it all falls outta my head."

 

He slams his fist on the table and curses under his breath, looking out of the kitchen window at the clearing that the Mystery Shack inhabits--it's so calm and peaceful outside, he wishes he could capture some of that right now.

 

Ford sighs softly. "It might be because you're missing the biggest piece of the puzzle," he says uncertainly, rubbing his thumb into his opposite palm, unable to look up. "When we were 17... dad kicked you out of the house before you could finish school. You left the state, and as far as I know, you never got your GED. And... you never came home."

 

"Wait, that sorta sounds familiar. I think." Stan says, holding out his arms, fingers brushing close to Ford before he draws them back and he looks away, thinking. "I had bad luck--some real bad luck, and then somethin' happened, but I can't remember what." He looks back at Ford, "If I left home, how'd you get here? How'd _I_ get here?"

 

Ford sucks his teeth for a moment. It seems to be working, which should be a good thing, he knows it should. And in a way, he knows it is. But he also knows the way things were between them right before they swapped clothes and Stan made the deal with Bill in his stead. Right up until the end there things were bad, and they were bad on both sides. He knows he shouldn't have said that last word just to be petty, he knows the zodiac was ruined because of him-- and wasn't that just an unfortunate pattern of his life? But he also knows that Stan didn't even want to come save him at all, a fact which he later overheard Dipper and Mabel talking about when they thought they were alone.

 

Things were bad. Things have been bad for a very long time. And there's no saying that if Stan recovers all his memory, things won't be bad again. It took until the moment where Stan lost everything for Ford to realize that one of the only things keeping him going in the Otherworld had been the knowledge that Stan was still out there, somewhere, living his life. And it took Stan losing everything for Ford to realize that despite living through hell and nearly dying and all the fear and the running and the hiding and the torture, that losing Stan for good was the worst thing to ever happen to him.

 

The last few weeks following Weirdmageddon has given him a lot of time to think, to reflect on his life and where everything went wrong. He can clearly remember the betrayal he felt when he thought Stan had sabotaged his future on purpose as if it was fresh, as if it happened yesterday. But objectively, it'd been so long and he's accomplished so much despite his failings that he can't bring himself to _care_ anymore. And he knows that Stanley brought him home with the hopes that he would have already come to that conclusion while he was stuck in the Otherworld, and that when he stepped back through that portal, things would have gone right back to the way it was when they were kids, as if no time had passed at all. He knows some part of Stan wanted things to settle, he wanted them to be okay. But was there any guarantee that this was the part of Stan that would overcome the anger Stanley felt towards him until the end?

 

The anger that he fully knows is his fault. Some part of him _had_ forgiven Stanley years ago. Some part of him that thought he'd never see Stan again had forgiven him ages ago, just so Ford could reminisce and daydream about the good times without guilt. While he was hunkered down in a frozen wasteland, buried under a thin sheet he would think about where he and Stan would be today if he hadn't gone through the portal, if things had resolved after their fight over the journal. Or when tying himself to the branches of a tree so he wouldn't fall out of it while he slept, and he would daydream about what their lives would have looked like if Stanley had called him from the school the night he accidentally broke his project to let him know what happened, and worked with him to repair it so they never had that brutal falling out. That part of Ford loved Stan to the ends of the earth and back and always had, and that part of Ford forgave Stan a long, long time ago for the sake of his own sanity.

 

But the rest of Ford had completely been consumed by old anger the moment he saw Stanley, and he knows it's his fault for letting that anger consume him. He could have choked it down, he could have forced it aside, he could have pretended. He should have pretended. Maybe things would have been different.

 

What he's looking at now, in a way, is a second chance. It's not the second chance he ever would have preferred, and if they could reconcile any other way than this he would gladly take it, even if it meant sacrificing something himself. He can't undo the past and he can't erase his mistakes, all he can do is move forward, all he can do is give Stan the brother he spent thirty years wishing desperately would walk out of that portal. The brother Ford failed to give to him until it was too late.

 

Things will never be so easy, though and Ford knows that. Stanley's mind may have been wiped by the memory gun, but the history for his brother is all still there, and with all of that comes the gripping fear that once Stan regains his memories, he might pull back and cut him out of his life completely to punish him for being ungrateful at the start-- and then this, everything they'd been through and are still going through, would be for naught. Tears fill his eyes unbidden and he ducks his head, covering his face with both hands, and he makes a very difficult decision. In order to let Stan be happy for the first time in a long time-- for the first time, he'd guess, since before they parted ways as teenagers-- he's going to change some things. He's going to give him that chance to be happy, and make that sacrifice along the way. He's going to rewrite his own story, erase some of the most important things that made him himself. It's the least he can do for Stanley losing _all_ of it.

 

"You accidentally broke my school project," he says finally, sniffing and dropping his hands. "A project that was going to get me into a very good school. It was an accident, and you tried to tell us that, but... father didn't care. All he cared about was the fact that missing my chance to go to that school meant I'd never be a millionaire, and I'd never make enough money for him and ma to move out of New Jersey. he was so angry at you that he threw you out... told you that you couldn't come home until you made as much money as I would have with that scholarship."

 

As Stan sits across from him, he seems worried, but it's about something entirely different. He can't remember how he and Ford managed to meet up again, if what his brother says is really true and he was kicked out, left for dead by their parents. Ford can talk and talk, tell him the story of their lives, but unless Stan really retains it, all it is to him is the story of a man his brother once knew. But there some deeply buried part of him that knows what Ford is saying is the truth, it has to be. So far, his twin has shown himself to be smart, upstanding and kind, there's no reason as far as Stan can discern, for him to lie about anything.

 

So it is, with trusting eyes, he turns back to Ford and asks again, "How did we end up here? I've seen the pictures, Ford I've been here awhile, people treat me like-- like I'm some kinda fixture here. For cripesake, everyone knows me by name, haven't met a single person in town who doesn't know me. So just tell me. I don't care if it's bad, ya geddit? I've lost my mind here, Ford. You gotta tell me."

 

Ford sighs. "Alright, but you have to keep an open mind. It's going to sound crazy." He waits for Stan to nod before continuing. "After I went to my backup school, I came to this place to pursue my research into the paranormal," he says cautiously. He knows Stan doesn't remember any of the supernatural things that have happened, and the skepticism is so engrained in his personality that it's been a hard sell to get him to believe it's real a second time. Short of actually taking him somewhere to show him something, Ford isn't sure Stan will completely believe him, despite everyone's matches tales of weirdmageddon. But at the very least, Stan typically humors him. "You were traveling the country, trying to make money, when I called you for help. I needed your help hiding some of my research, because I'd been tricked by a monster into building something very dangerous. I believed him when he told me it would advance society and improve the world, but I realized just too late that I was building a _door_ for him to use to come into our world and destroy it. While you were here, something went... wrong."

 

The guilt builds up in his chest, but Ford proceeds. After all, the only alternative is to tell him that they fought, that Ford burned him, that Ford's hope that Stanley would feel honored that he was the only one Ford could trust with the safety of the entire world was completely crushed by the subtext that in doing so, he was asking Stan to take the book (and himself by extension) far away. The only alternative is to bring the anger back, and rekindle a fire that only just simmered out, a fire that Stanley never wanted to burn in the first place. He lets out a breath.

 

"The machine... malfunctioned. It started, and I was sucked through the portal into the Otherworld. It only had enough fuel to operate for a few seconds and shut down after I went through. That's where our stories diverge, and everything I know about you after that I only learned from secondhand stories. I know that you stayed in my house-- this house-- for the next 30 years, looking for the rest of my research so you could refuel the portal and bring me home. I know that you turned my home into a tourist trap in order to make money to continue funding your repairs and maintenance on the portal you barely knew how to operate at all, even with my research. I know that a man without a GED managed to operate a machine that a genius built with the help of an entity of knowledge from another dimension. And I know that... nobody's ever really given you the credit you deserve for doing that."

 

He reaches across the table to rest his hand on top of Stan's, brushing his thumb over his knuckles. Stanley turns his hand over to clutch Ford's, hard. He doesn't want to let go. There's a pang in his chest as he looks at his brother. He wishes he could remember that moment when Ford had come back through, it must have been such a grand and glorious thing, but all he can do is let his mind fill in the gaps with pictures, like a child with a story.

 

However, his memory is jogged on another part, and he admits this to Ford with a shaky voice, "I remember when you got sucked up in that thing, it hurt." He frowns deeply, trying to recall. "It felt like I'd never see ya again, but I can't remember the gaps." He clonks his fist against his forehead, sending his glasses slightly askew. "I can't even remember you comin' back through the portal . . . I know ya said it was important, but I just. Can't remember, Ford."

 

"That's okay," Ford takes his other hand, squeezing both of them across the table. "Don't push it. It'll come when it comes." He wants desperately to reach out and touch Stanley's face, cup his cheek, touch him, he wants to _touch_ him, but he keeps his hands sedately clasped around Stan's instead. "When I came back, we only had about a month before Bill arrived. He came through utilizing a rift that I... failed to protect. And you know the rest."

 

"That's when I lost my memory," Stan fills it.

 

"In order to erase Bill," Ford nods, and squeezes his hands. "That's... everything I know. The big picture, anyway. Details will come as they come."

 

Stanley is quiet for a long time, inspecting an invisible spot on the table, as if anything's more interesting than the present, but they both know he has questions; however, those questions form a whirlwind in his mind, and it's hard to catch just one. Eventually though, he does settle on one that's been weighing heavy on his mind.

 

"So uh, you an' me, we always been close?" He asks this, worrying over his lip for just a moment or two, then slowly his eyes meet Ford's and he looks a little lost. It's been burning in his brain, that question. Every time Ford touches his hand, or sits close to him, the way his brother acts around him is clear. They must have been inseparable before his memory loss, but now he feels like a stranger in his own skin.

 

The guilt hits him again like a stab to the chest. He can't bring himself to outright lie to Stan, not when he's asked directly, but he can't risk telling him the truth either. He looks conflicted as he stares down at their joined hands, and he turns Stan's over palm-up, folding his thumbs over the center of his hands.

 

"We fought, like every pair of siblings does," he admits. "We didn't always see eye-to-eye. But we were... you were there for me when it counted. You taught me to stand up for myself when we were boys, and I taught you-- I tried to teach you to believe in your talents. I don't know if it ever sunk in. My biggest regret is not being there for you the day you needed me most, when dad was kicking you out of the house, and I was scared and hiding. I've never forgiven myself for that."

 

It isn't exactly a lie... but it isn't exactly the truth, either.

 

"Spending 40 years apart damages any relationship, but the fact that we're here, now, the fact that I'm here at _all_ is proof that our relationship is so strong it transcends decades and interdimensional space-time itself. We might not have always been close, but we've always been..." he struggles to think of a single word that could sum up the relationship they've had, and then lost, and then found again over the decades. He finally lands on a slightly choked-up, "Faithful."

 

"Makes us sound like an old married couple." Stan laughs gruffly, watching as his brother's six fingers drag over his hand, following the worn lines of his palm like a road map, careful but familiar, like he's traced those lines hundreds of times, knowing their routes perfectly. When Stan looks at him now, there's warmth behind his eyes, something Ford had longed to see since everything had fallen apart between them. "Guess you're right. What matters now is that you're here, helpin' me. Ya wouldn't be doin' that if I didn't mean somethin' to ya."

 

Ford gives a desperate, pained little laugh, squeezing Stan's hands once more before letting them go. "You have no idea," he murmurs, standing up from the table and crossing over to the sink to put away Stan's empty plate and mug. "Feels like the Pines men aren't really meant for marriage, sometimes. Sherman got married, and I heard from you that you briefly married an older woman before I went to the Otherworld, but I never met her or knew her."

 

Stan gives him a puzzled glance, "Sherman? Wait a second, I was _married?"_ he sounds absolutely incredulous about it. That memory, it would seem, is lost to the ether, which is what shocks him so much about it, but certainly there's also that undercurrent of insecurity Stan has always had, regardless. It's just hard to believe anyone could be into him in that way, as far as Stan knows, he's never been anything but an old man with hair coming out of his ears. "Back up. Who's Sherman?" Ford might have told him about this person once before, but Stan can hardly recall. That's the status quo lately.

 

"Sherman is our older brother," Ford explains as he turns the water on to run over Stan's plate, and then turns around to face him. He has spoken about Sherman before, but he's very patient with every time Stan forgets. Sometimes he remembers, sometimes he doesn't. Ford never gets upset with him for forgetting. "Was. Our older brother. We weren't ever close to him. He was from our father's previous marriage. He was already 13 when we were born, so he moved out by the time we were six. Moved up to New York, got a fancy job and a pretty wife and settled down. By the time we were old enough to ever even think about visiting, you were being kicked out and everything sort of fell apart."

 

Sighing softly, he shakes his head and crosses the room to offer Stanley a hand to stand up, guiding him to the living room so they have somewhere more comfortable to sit while they talk. "Sherman died four years ago. I was still missing at the time, you were the one who told me he died."

 

"It's weird, hearin' all this secondhand from you--weirder when ya tell me I used to know all this stuff. Makes my head feel like it's in a blender." Stan sinks down onto the couch with a groan, his old knees grinding painfully under his weight but soon enough they're relieved of their burden and he gives a proper, old man sigh. "So Sherman and uh . . . I feel like there was another one, but I don't remember. Go figure." He scoffs, rolling his eyes with a click of his tongue. "The other one, that's Mabel and Dipper's . . . mom, right?"

 

Under his breath, Stanley curses, biting back his tongue. It's so frustrating that he can't remember all of this very basic information about his own family. Balling his fist in anger, he takes a deep breath and sighs it out. "Sorry, Ford. I just don't remember."

 

"Sherman and his wife gave birth to Dipper and Mabel's mother," Ford confirms, unsurprised that Stan is getting his streams crossed, but his face lights up anyway. "You know you just remembered their names? All on your own, I haven't mentioned Mabel or Dipper yet today."

 

"Huh." Stan chuckles under his breath and splays his legs a bit to get comfortable, stretching back in his seat with a big yawn. "Guess you're right, Ford. Hey, maybe some of this stuff's stickin' afterall. So those kids're Sherman's grandkids. Guess that's why we're great uncles, then. At this rate, maybe I'll have it straight come Hanukkah."

 

"Yes," Ford sits down on the opposite end of the couch, turning halfway to face Stan and crooking his leg up on the sofa, stretching his arm over the back. "We had a younger brother, too. He was just a baby when you left New Jersey, and I went off to school. He was 17 years younger than us, so... we never really knew him, either."

 

A deeply sad expression crosses Ford's face as he looks down at his hand on his knee, flexing his fingers. "After you left home, and dad considered you a disgrace, and then as far as they knew I went completely crazy out in the woods and you _died_..." he sighs. "I guess they were extra hard on Stewart. They wanted to have at least one child who succeeded in life. They pushed him and pushed him, made him take boxing like dad made you, after Sherman excelled at it, and like dad before you, but they also tried to make him into a second _me_ , tried to wring a genius IQ out of the poor boy, and it just... doesn't work like that."

 

He turns his head to look out the window, at the redwoods outside with their leaves swaying in the early autumn breeze. "He went to West Coast Tech. The school that denied me. And he killed himself in his freshman year. Cracked under the pressure, I suppose. I was already long gone, and you were out here trying to save me, and he just... slipped away. That was 22 years ago."

 

Stan shakes his head, mouth twitching with some imperceptible emotion, it's hard to read his face as his eyes drop. For a long time, he doesn't say anything, just mulls over the collective information he has, all that he can remember, and all that he knows. It's patchy, but there's one thing evident to him.

 

"Our family's as busted up as my head." He doesn't look up from his hands, the fingers of which he's flexing now, trying to work out some of the stiffness. "Mom and Dad? What happened to them?"

 

"Dad died eight years ago," Ford says. "Heart disease. Just dropped dead one day in the same pawn shop he'd been working in for decades. You told me you didn't go to his funeral. You told me mom didn't call you, either. You found out from a cousin that he died. Mom died two years later, but either they really never did find out the cause of death, or you knew and you were just keeping it secret because it was too upsetting. I never really looked into it. Never felt the need."

 

"Guess we'll never know." Stan rubs the back of his neck, and gives a rough sigh. "Maybe it's better like this--if everything ya say is true, neither of 'em were winnin' any parenting awards, so I dunno . . . maybe it's a good thing they're gone and I don't remember. Don't seem like they deserve to be remembered, anyways."

 

"Mom wasn't always all bad," Ford says. "When it was just the three of us, she was nice to be around. She played with us, laughed with us. But as soon as dad came upstairs for the night, it's like her entire personality changed." He sighs, shaking his head. "I have no doubts our mother was just as abused as the two of us were by that man, but... she just never did anything about it. You eventually left, I went off to school and never came home, and she just. Stayed with him until he died. I don't understand that kind of loyalty to someone who's only ever hurt you."

 

As soon as he says it, of course, he realizes that it was Stan who had that sort of loyalty for him, even when he thought Ford was complicit in Stan getting kicked out, and then asked for him to come for the first time only to ask for him to leave, and then the first thing he did when he got back was punch Stanley in the face... granted it had started out so, so good, but it had turned so bad and stayed bad for so long that sometimes he can't really blame Stan for not wanting to come rescue him when Weirdmageddon was in full swing. He stands up from the couch, rubbing his eyes under his glasses, and finally offers Stan a hand.

 

"Let's take a walk."

 

"In my bathrobe?" Stan laughs, but he takes the hand anyways. "Why don't you let me get dressed first. If ya wanna keep talkin', you can come with me. Not like I got anything you ain't seen."

 

It feels like an intimate gesture, but Ford doubts it has that intention behind it. It feels wrong to take advantage of Stan when he doesn't remember the relationship they used to have, but at the same time... he _did_ offer. So he tugs Stan to his feet and follows him to his bedroom on the second floor, listening to his brother's knees click with a grimace of sympathy, and he leans against the doorway as he waits for Stan to get dressed.

 

"You know, there are exercises we could do every day to help with your knees," he offers, trying to sound nonchalant about it. The last thing he wants is for Stan to feel like he's patronizing him. "Simple ones, you can do them sitting down."

 

"Yeah? Like what? These things have been givin' me trouble since I turned forty." Stan pauses as he shrugs out of his bathrobe and he squints up at the ceiling. "Howdid I remmeber that?"

 

Shaking his head, he pulls the robe off the rest of the way and begins to work open the buttons of his flannel pajamas, which Ford had gotten specifically for him, since summer's end has been edging them into cooler weather. When the buttons are undone, he tosses the shirt aside on the bed and goes to the closet in search for something; and while he does, Ford gets a chance to really look at his brother for the first time in awhile.

 

Sure he'd seen him in his night clothes, but without his shirt, the lines of age are apparent on his body. Where once his shoulders were snapped tight, they slump now, still broad but heavy with age, his neck equally hunched from stooping--and his back is bowed a bit, his midsection heavier than Ford had ever seen it in their younger years, his chest less taut that it used to be. His arms are still as thick around as Ford remembers, strong as they've ever been, but he walks like it takes concerted effort just to move his own body, if he isn't actively paying attention to his posture.

 

The older twin's body is the product of being on the run, living a hard life without the luxury of relaxation. He's trim from necessity, and while he has old injuries of his own, he's in fairly good physical health. Stan on the other hand shows the scars of a hard life in different ways, his body has picked up the check for a life lived in various stages of excess and poverty, every line tells a story. They're the same age, but somehow Stan looks ten years older.

 

Ford feels himself aging just looking at Stan, and the middle of his chest feels tight with grief at looking at what his brother has become. It isn't a matter of vanity, but of a gripping, sheer terror that he will die far, far before Ford, and he'll be alone again. He knows logically that he won't be alone, he'll still have Mabel and Dipper, but Stan is truthfully the one he wants. Stan is the one he wants to be near, and the terrifying reality is that Stan is in much worse health than he is. The more he watches his brother, the less guilty Ford feels about sneakily making Stan's lifestyle healthier.

 

Stan looks up into the mirror over his dresser to see Ford staring directly at him with an unreadable expression, and he doesn't even look away for the first few moments, apparently unashamed to be caught looking. Ford clears his throat and rubs his thumb over his knuckles, looking down at his hands.

 

"You just need to brace your feet against something with resistance and push," he says belatedly, his throat clenching. "It'll build up the load bearing weight of your knees, over time."

 

Electing not to reply to that, Stan watches him a moment before slipping on a black tee shirt with a plunging neckline. He shoots Ford a glare, feeling like he's being stared at in some way he can't quite place, but something in the pit of his stomach twists, and he tries to shake it off. After tugging on a pair of jeans, he sets about putting on his shoes and pulling his leather jacket on before adding the finishing touches--his necklace and a few spritzes of cologne.

 

Turning back to face Ford, who he hasn't even answered yet, he walks right up to him standing shoulder to shoulder, "Where we goin'?"

 

"Not sure," Ford shrugs, slinging an arm around Stan's shoulders as they head down the hall. "I guess we'll figure out when we get there."


End file.
